It is said that our ability to create Web content vastly outstrips our ability to digest it. Consistency in how content is structured, catalogued and managed is consistently inconsistent, to say the least. The problem also persists in the world of digital signage.

 

Digital signs are the electronic or digital signs that you find in elevators, in lobby kiosks, or even the billboards in Time Square. It is believed that China already has more than 100,000 of these digital signs.

 

Cisco® today announced the development of a new qualification program for those creating content for digital signage. The Cisco Academy of Digital Signage (ADS) will offer a specialized curriculum focusing on the three vital areas of digital signage:

 

• content creation
• content management
• content distribution

 

Continue reading "Content is the focus of new Academy of Digital Signage" »

Setting-up a spoof Facebook site in the name of a celebrity, athlete or politician is a popular past time. For a Moroccan computer engineer and father, his spoof has delivered him to jail -- three years in jail for setting up a Facebook site in the name of a member of the royal Moroccan family.

 

Fouad Mourtada was sentenced this week on suspicion of stealing the identity of Moroccan King Mohammed VI’s younger brother, Prince Moulay Rachid (see Jail for Facebook spoof Moroccan, BBC).

 

The prosecution had urged the court to impose a sentence which set an example for others. Mr Mourtada was convicted of "villainous practices linked to the alleged theft of the [prince's] identity".

 

In his defence, he said he admired the prince, and that the Facebook entry was just intended to be a bit of fun.

 

A website supporting him published a letter addressed to the prince apologising for the incident.

 

Earlier this week some Moroccan bloggers went "on strike", suspending their regular blog entries for 24 hours in protest at Mr. Mourtada's detention.

 

According to the website, he told family members who visited him in jail that he had been blindfolded and beaten unconscious at the time of his arrest.

 

Apparently using Facebook is dangerous after all. While I can’t imagine such severe punishment in the Western World, there undoubtedly will be some price to pay in severe cases of liable and slander when misusing Facebook and other social media that make it easy to spoof people.

 

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“Collaborative tools are overloading employees and killing productivity—to the tune of $588 billion a year, according to a January study by Basex, a collaboration technologies consulting firm,” writes Brian Watson of CIO Magazine (see Web 2.0: Too Good to Be True?). “It’s the money-saving argument that’s getting pushback lately.”

 

Web 2.0 does not deliver the ROI, does not live up the hype, and is not even close to being a top priority for senior management (not all, but most).

 

A CIO Magazines study, Top Technology Priorities for 2008 finds that even techies don’t consider Web 2.0 as a priority. A survey of 250 “top IT executives” from a collection of small, medium and large organizations doesn’t even touch on the issue of Web 2.0.

 

Continue reading "Web 2.0 fails the grade, according to executives" » (on Content Matters)

 

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I didn’t immediately see the promise of Facebook’s advertising. I don’t just mean the value proposition to Facebook users, I also mean what I saw when looking at Facebook.

 

At first, I was presented with ads to enroll in online programs at the University of Phoenix and to subject myself to cosmetic surgery. Hard to see how they are customized to my preferences, but maybe there is some trend discernible in the posts to my Funwall that suggest I’m receptive to such offers.

 

More puzzling was the online poll asking which team is better: the Patriots or the Cowboys. The question of who is the best football team was definitively answered when the Saskatchewan Roughriders won the Grey Cup, a hot topic for many of my friends who—regardless of whether they were living in Ireland, Saskatoon, South Korea or Toronto—made their allegiance very apparent on Facebook.

 

In other words, lots of discussion about the CFL in my social network, no mention of the NFL. Not exposing me to an NFL poll should have been a no-brainer for a media channel that is supposed to be obviously different to the untargeted ads and pop-ups that intercept a visit to the New York Times and CIO, or the offers that appear beside Premiership fantasy teams.

 

I came around on the value proposition after reading eMarketer’s recent article “The Promise of Social Network Advertising” . It reports that:

• 37% of the US adult Internet population used online social networking at least once a month. That figure will rise to 49% in 2011.
• Currently, 70% of all US teens visit social network sites on a monthly basis.
• By 2011, one-half of all online adults and 84% of online teens in the US will use social networking each month.

 

The value proposition right now is not social network based targeting, it’s eyeballs, which deliver sufficient value that eMarketer projects that worldwide online social network ad spending will grow from $1.2 billion in 2007 to $2.2 billion in 2008, 82%.

 

And the organization predicts that “if social network marketing delivers on its promise of peer recommendations the flow of advertising dollars will turn into a flood.”

 

Further reiteration of the value to advertisers of social network advertising came from one of our clients, the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario. An ad for their excellent blood pressure action tool appeared beside my Funwall one day, which prompted a conversation with our client about the effectiveness of the spend.

 

It delivered excellent value, she reported. Not only could HSFO target demographics based on user profiles (which is why I saw it, given my plus-35 age and residency in Ontario) they could spend a surprisingly small amount of money to reach me.

 

The last story made a very positive impression on the London, ON chapter of IABC in a presentation I delivered last week on “Managing Social Media.”

 

You can download the presentation by following the link below.

 

The estimates of how many advertising messages we are exposed to in a day varies considerably, from 400 to over 5,400.

 

They key phrase here is “exposed to,” not “pay attention to.”

 

In fact, one-third of the American population between the ages of 17 and 35 say they do just the opposite, according to CRM Magazine, and avoid ads altogether.

 

The promise of capturing the attention of this highly prized demographic is an important motivator for News Corp’s recent announcement that it will allow advertisers to deliver precision-targeted banner ads based on user-created data through the expansion of MySpace’s advertising platform.

 

The move offers a clear value proposition to New Corp., which requires a return on its massive investment in MySpace. It will also be appealing to advertisers, who invest an estimated $500 billion on advertising annually, and don’t wish to see that spend reach closed eyeballs.

 

With the new move from MySpace, advertisers can now pinpoint exactly who they want to reach, based on data collected from users' personal profiles, the groups they join and the messages they post for their friends.

While the value to News Corp. and the advertisers is obvious, it may be a more dubious proposition for the users, suggest some commentators, such as Kathryn Montgomery, a professor at American University and author of the book “Generation Digital: Politics, Commerce, and Childhood in the Age of the Internet.”

Montgomery told the New York Times that: “Despite all of the assurances that the industry gave to regulators and the public, it sounds as if their business plans sort of fly in the face of the promises to operate without exploiting young people.

“If you are hanging out with your friends and talking about who you are, what rock stars you like, and so on, you don’t assume that someone is sitting there and taking down every word you’re saying and putting it into some kind algorithm,” she said.

Citing performance increases of more than 300 per cent in terms of things like click-throughs versus ads that are targeted through demographics, Travis Katz, international marketing director for MySpace, tells the Globe & Mail that his company is simply applying the user-generated principles of social media to its advertising approach, especially for smaller advertisers. “It's really the idea of empowering all of these users – small business, independent film makers, musicians – to leverage social networks and do advertising in a way that is efficient, smart and easy to use.”

 

That’s an extremely valuable proposition for the advertiser. Now let’s see if users agree.

 

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The Three Cs of Mastering MySpace   

Although both leading personalized user portals have been around for years, the two search turned portal turned Augustus Caesars have been upping the ante for your eyeballs.

 

The ongoing war is being fought with content and Web 2.0 as the delivery mechanism. Both My Yahoo! and iGoogle are personalized portals that allow the users to choose the type of content, layout, design, and tools that appear on the home page.

 

This spring iGoogle was redesigned and enhanced with new tools including Google gadgets (Google gadgets are interactive mini-applications like personalized, weather, etc. for your desktop – the same gadgets that inspired the gruesome Windows Vista gadgets).

Read teh full article iGoogle vs My Yahoo! (Content Matters).

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“A do-everything site with the potential to devour the whole Internet,” according to Christopher Beam of Slate magazine (see How Facebook could crush MySpace, Yahoo!, and Google).

 

Facebook started as a college alternative to MySpace, but has exploded in popularity and will soon overtake MySpace as the most visited social networking site. According the ubiquitously accepted Alexa.com website rankings, Facebook is now the 10th most visited site on the Internet – up 6 places since the rankings were last updated (MySpace is unchanged in the 6th spot).

 

“MySpace, if you ask me, is a spam-infested state of nature,” writes Beam. “The average user page comes with a crapload of embedded music and video players, some seizure-inducing wallpaper, and a bunch of friend requests from "models" who want to "get to know you." Facebook, on the other hand, is much less customizable but also a lot more reassuring. The interface is comfy, sturdy, and attractive without being showy—the kind of social network you'd bring home to Mom.”

 

Read the complete article The Facebook Revolution (Content Matters).

 

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For the increasing number of healthcare consumers who appreciate the value of finding relevant health content, a recent article in the New York Times, Google and Microsoft look to change healthcare, offers hopeful insights into how the tech giants plan to enable people to make smarter choices about their health habits and medical care.

 

The article also provides helpful insights for those who must construct online strategies for their organizations, especially when bringing an established value proposition to a new market.

 

Controlling health content

Steve Lohr, the Time reporter, writes that:

 

The Google and Microsoft initiatives would give much more control to individuals, a trend many health experts see as inevitable. “Patients will ultimately be the stewards of their own information,” said John D. Halamka, a doctor and the chief information officer of the Harvard Medical School.

 

Already the Web is allowing people to take a more activist approach to health. According to the Harris survey, 58 percent of people who look online for health information discussed what they found with their doctors in the last year.

 

It is common these days, Dr. Halamka said, for a patient to come in carrying a pile of Web page printouts. “The doctor is becoming a knowledge navigator,” he said. “In the future, health care will be a much more collaborative process between patients and doctors.”

 

Microsoft and Google are hoping this will lead people to seek more control over their own health records, using tools the companies will provide. Neither company will discuss their plans in detail. But Microsoft’s consumer-oriented effort is scheduled to be announced this fall, while Google’s has been delayed and will probably not be introduced until next year, according to people who have been briefed on the companies’ plans.

 

A user defined value proposition

While we can only speculate at this stage on Google’s health plans, it’s a safe bet that the company will continue to extend its well established value proposition.

 

Google’s breakthrough was PageRank, a method of using the link structure of the web, rather than just the characteristics of documents, to provide better search results. Google’s databases maintain billions of pages and employ a proprietary alogorithm to "score" the relevancy of websites for each search query. The highest ranking, or "most relevant" websites for a specific query are listed first in the search results.

 

But Google does not define its value proposition in terms of technical functionality, it expresses it in terms of user experience, according to Tim Armstrong, its VP of Advertising: “Our search index is the value proposition that we offer to our users. The reason people come back to Google every day … is that we offer them non-paid, relevant information, both quickly and totally objectively.” That simple message, based on a clear understanding of customer experience, has provided the company with its growth opportunities in advertising, he adds.

 

The Time article also demonstrates that its value proposition is leading the company into health, because Google is the default starting point for most health searches. “And people are increasingly turning to their computers and the Web for health information and advice. A Harris poll, published last month, found that 52 percent of adults sometimes or frequently go to the Web for health information, up from 29 percent in 2001.”

 

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The tragedy at Virginia Tech is a horrific, unforgettable event. My heart and prayers go out to all the family and friends affected by the hell they are going through.

Earlier this week, Tim O'Keeffe and Michael Clendenin both talked about VT’s response to the crisis and mused about the use of a second website or ‘dark site’ for crisis communications. The killings and the ensuing confusion of fearful parents and family was accentuated by the loss of the school’s website in the immediate aftermath of the shooting. One only hopes that VT was only not prepared for the potential spike in traffic and that the crowds of concerned visitors crashed the website (for it would have been an extraordinarily bad decision to have made the conscious decision to pull down the website voluntarily during such a crisis).

In short, there were likely many tens-of-thousands of concerned people attempting to access the VT website for more information on the tragedy – and likely were hoping to glean some information about a loved one. The website though was not available.

A secondary or ‘dark site’ that could be published quickly in a crisis to communicate breaking news and information would not have solved this dilemma. Proper infrastructure planning and hosting could only have prevented a site collapse. If the university lacked the ability to publish information to the home page and therefore decided to turn-off the website, then shame on them. With modern content management and near instantaneous publishing capabilities for even the lowest-tech luddites, VT wouldn’t require a special dark site to communicate details of the unfolding tragedy. The university would merely publish information to the website as it became available and provide links from the home page and media center. For example, after I write this column in MS-Word, it takes about 60 seconds to publish it live (but I could do it in as little as 20 seconds).

Dark sites have their place and purpose, and are particularly valuable in large, planned and complex events (such as a merger or acquisition), but the use of a dark site for crisis communications has largely been supplanted by modern publishing technology and the advanced content management system. Every organization should have a crisis communications plan, and every organization should be able to publish very quickly as the need arises. Furthermore, in the event of a crisis and a landslide of unexpected traffic, it is wise to plan in advance with your website host to ensure they can accommodate large spikes in traffic should the event arise.

How pervasive are social media tools (such as blogs and podcasts) becoming? Here are some of the numbers (taken from my CNW seminar series Social media (Web 2.0): are you in?):

  

·         There are approximately 55 million English language blogs – 45,000 new blogs created every day

·         44% of web users in the U.S. read political blogs

·         20% of Canadians say they read blogs on a regular basis

·         Three of the top 8 most trafficked sites on the Internet are social media sites that didn’t exist a couple of years ago (e.g. YouTube.com)

·         13% use RSS (real simple syndication ) for reading

·         29% of U.S. adults who own MP3 players have downloaded podcasts (The Pew Internet & American Life Project)

 

Listen to the complete webcast of my and Brent Holliday’s presentation Social media (Web 2.0): are you in?

 

Also includes a link to the Social media checklist handout and the presentation slides.

 

Tips for adoption

 

James Robertson has a number of tips for adoption:

 

• Create a prototype or pilot.
• Use stories to articulate (and capture) needs.
• Build on existing platforms.
• Use case studies from similar organisations.
• Be passionate about the right things.

 

See James’s complete list of tips for adopting enterprise 2.0.

 

My own tips for adopting social media tools:

 

• Social media is reinventing the Internet, creating a space where your audience can talk about you in a whole new way. On a regular basis, monitor the social web to see what is being said about you.
• Ensure you’re aware of which community websites (e.g. YouTube) are growing in popularity and evaluate how they might change the way people talk about your organization.
• Planning is an essential requisite for success. Develop a plan that is based on a thorough assessment and contains measurable success indicators.
• Leadership must set the tone. Your executives must be leading the dialogue and controlling the message.
• Relevant, up-to-date and valued content that supports, promotes and details your products, services and competitive advantages.
• Know the link between your website, sales and customer service. What is your website worth?
• Understand the ingredients of a good blog. Benchmark and cherry-pick from the leaders (e.g. Boing Boing, IntranetBlog.com, etc.)
• Keep pace with the trends and best practices, technological advancements and latest developments. Subscribe to newsletters from leaders such as CNET, eMarketer and Prescient Digital Media.

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A 3,600% surge in page views on the day a new website debuts would certainly qualify as a success, and validate a decision to perform a comprehensive revamp of the site. That success is what the Town of Banff and its partners enjoyed last Thursday when it unveiled its new website.

 

As anyone who has even a passing familiarity with websites knows, a comprehensive site redesign is a process not an event. They also know that visits, while critical, are only one success indicator for a site.

 

In Banff’s case, the process that culminated in its successful launch began a number of months ago when it set out to improve a site it knew was not working. In tackling this project, Banff had to achieve a goal that few other municipalities with under 10,000 residents would require: bringing a unique experience online.

 

Prescient was fortunate to be chosen as the partner to collaborate with Town and its partners on this project, which let me experience first-hand the qualities that had to be captured on the site.

 

That experience can best be summarized by the first day of one trip. Walking down Banff Avenue, I had a 360-degree view of the spectacular Canadian Rockies which, because the town sits in a national park, were unobstructed by commercial development. I paused to watch some kids from the local school playing soccer on a pitch by the school before bumping into several people I’d met on previous visits. And at the end of a meeting, I was invited to go canoeing, rock climbing and running. I opted for the run, after which I dined on Buffalo cheeks in a terrific restaurant.

 

Banff, in other words, provides unmediated access to one of the world’s most spectacular environments, which makes it an exciting place to visit. It also attracts residents who have a passion for enjoying that environment. They have a deep-rooted respect for the values of the national park, and are happy to disclose their knowledge of how to enjoy the Rockies. They also appreciate that sharing the town and park with visitors is a reality of living in one of the world’s premier tourist destinations.

 

Research on the old website resulted in a number of key findings, with one emerging strongly: visitors wanted to understand what made Banff special, and residents wanted to see their experience of the town and park reflected on the site.

 

This research played a vital role in driving the process that resulted in last week’s launch. In addition to the spike in visits, Banff’s webmaster Kevin Elliott cites a number of features that have resulted in the site’s positive reception by town residents:

• There’s a lot of information on the site, and it’s easy to find thanks to an intuitive Information Architecture and other navigation aids.
• The look-and-feel incorporates many images of Banff and conveys the Banff experience online.
• The acquisition of a Content Management System (CMS) means town staff can up-date information in minutes instead of hours.
• There’s good information for visitors, but residents can still find the information they need easily.
• The weather appears prominently on the home page.

 

Another excellent feature, one that enables the residents to share their passion for enjoying the Rockies, is “what the locals do”. It means one doesn’t have to step into a Banff watering hole to learn the best way to experience the town and park from the people who know it most intimately.

There was no missing the unveiling of Apple's iPhone last week. It electrified the media and had the audience at Macworld whooping. Almost eclipsing the phone itself was Steve Jobs, and his vision for applying ease-of-use and aesthetic design principles to every device his company produces.

 

A cult of personality was not evident in the presentation by Bill Gates in the same week at the Consumer Electronics Show, however, and the media reaction to Microsoft’s flagship announcement, Vista, had little of the delight that greeted the iPhone.

 

Microsoft’s new operating system has generated interest, but not enthusiasm. While there are passionate exchanges among a certain set whenever Microsoft does anything, the mainstream emotion has been one of resignation about the software giant’s ability to brute force its OS into the market.

 

The contrasting appearances by two giants of the technology world provides an excellent opportunity to think about the role that vision plays in a company’s strategy, and a leader’s responsibility to establish and maintain that vision.

 

The Globe & Mail’s Simon Avery picked up on this opportunity to offer a useful discussion on the styles of Jobs and Gates. In the article, he quotes Roger Kay, president of Endpoint Technologies Associates Inc., a research firm in Wayland, Mass. who observes that: “Microsoft has a certain cult of personality. Gates is thought of as a special guru, and people sit at his feet trying to understand what he’s thinking. That’s totally different from Steve Jobs. He’s an autocrat. He’s a sun king. He’s very capricious, autocratic, and creative and charismatic. He’s all kinds of good things, mixed with some pretty strange things. It’s a totally unique formula.”

 

Where Jobs sets a strategy based on a vision of innovation and elegance, Gates has positioned Microsoft to be a “fast follower,” letting Netscape or Google develop a market and then moving in to dominate it.

 

Famously, before it followed Netscape, Microsoft pursued and then overtook Apple. This story is told in the remarkable PBS documentary “Triumph of the Nerds.” The series not only documents the birth of the rivalry between Jobs and Gates, it also reminds us that the vision on display from both men was present when they conceived their companies decades ago.

 

Consider this statement from Jobs: “The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste, they have absolutely no taste…I don’t mean that in a small way I mean that in a big way. In the sense that they don’t think of original ideas and they don’t bring much culture into their product… if it weren’t for the Mac they would never have that in their products and so I guess I am saddened, not by Microsoft’s success - I have no problem with their success, they’ve earned their success for the most part. I have a problem with the fact that they just make really third rate products.”

 

According to Apple’s ex-CEO, John Sculley, Microsoft succeeded because, “The problem was the industry wasn’t measured by who has the best selling personal computer or who has the most innovative technology. The industry was measured by who had the most open system that was adopted by the most other companies and the Microsoft strategy ultimately turned out to be the better business strategy.”

 

The unique qualities of Jobs and Gates could foster admiration more than emulation. But while few of us possess the intelligence, ego, insight, charisma, and drive required to transform industries, the success of both men teach valuable lessons about vision and strategy that we can all apply:

• First, a strategy requires a vision, and it’s the leader’s responsibility to ensure it exists, whether she creates it or facilitates her team to do so.
• Second, it requires a commitment to sustain the vision even when the external environment changes. The same focus on design principles that drove the Mac is guiding the iPhone today, just as Gates is promoting a world of networked entertainment.
• Third, the leader can’t allow the organization to deviate from the vision, especially by trying to emulate a competitor’s strategy. Jobs may begrudge Microsoft its success, but stays focused on inventing products with culture. Gates may admire the elegance of the iPhone, but he’s not going to be first to market with one.

 

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Like every other Christmas for the last several years, we left the high tech metropolis for the much more pastoral setting of Southern Saskatchewan. But unlike previous holidays, we found technology to be as pervasive on the farm as it is in the city. Which made for a much more sociable time.

 

In the past, technology divided more than it united. Teenage nephews would spend hours alone in the basement playing video games no one else enjoyed. Smaller children could only watch, and pose for, the adults who monopolized cameras. Teenage nieces would complain because the phone line was occupied. By adults who were spending hours checking e-mail through dial-up.

 

This year, technology brought people together in ways that demonstrate the dramatic changes that occur when it becomes available or affordable or, most important, easy to use.

 

An obvious example was the Nintendo Wii which my nephew brought. Rather than installing it in the basement, he set it up in the living room. At first, only the young ’uns, had a go. But soon uncles and aunts were drawn in by the simplicity of operating the game, and the physical motions that replicated activities they knew well, notably golf and bowling.

 

The Wii phenomenon is well documented, and is causing interesting changes in behavior. One of the more fascinating is the attempt being made by one blogger to see if his Wii “workout” will result in weight loss.

 

Aside from video games, we saw digital photography go way, way down market, into the hands of my three-year old daughter. Her new Fisher-Price camera is a marvel of simplicity and user-centric design, notably the big hand grips and two-eye viewing. It gave her the ability to participate in the ritual of documenting family gatherings, admittedly from an angle that places crotches in the foreground. The camera’s delete button is also easy to find.         

 

The most significant change, however, was the presence of broadband in my mother-in-law’s house. She recently signed up, adding to the incremental growth in at-home Internet usage (3.1% in the U.S. last year, for example).

 

Access improved with the arrival of our nephew who, before he had unpacked his bags and well before he set up the Wii, configured a wireless hub. That enabled us to make full use of the Internet. At times, we had four laptops connected, with notable social benefits. The nephew could play multi-player games with friends. Our brother-in-law could manage his sales forecast and check updates on his beloved Packers… from the sofa while still interacting with others. We could download recipes and stay in touch with e-mail. And, when a medical emergency necessitated a hospital visit, we could check medical symptoms online.                                                                         

 

The personal benefits enjoyed by our family as a result of broadband have much broader implications. According to eMarketer’s estimates, “an important milestone will be reached over the next 12 months — high-speed Internet penetration will surpass 50% of US households, equating to over 60 million residential broadband subscribers.”

 

According to eMarketer analyst Ben Macklin, “Broadband is now no longer about the size of your pipe, but how you use it.”

 

Based on what I saw over the holidays, the uses will be varied and defined by the users, which now include my three-year-old daughter and 80-year-old mother-in-law.

 

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The news that Google will pay at least $900 million in advertising revenue to have its search boxes and keyword-driven ads on MySpace helps to answer an important question about social networking: can companies monetize the strong traffic growth of this Web 2.0 phenomenon?

 

The deal means that Fox Interactive is starting to see a return on its $580 million acquisition of MySpace. Google, in turn, is expected to realise net revenue of $50 million to $200 million from its deal.

 

So there’s money being spent, and not just by Google. Debra Aho Williamson, Senior Analyst with eMarketer, writes in her breakdown of the deal that it will have no significant impact in 2006 because the payments do not start until 2007. eMarketer estimates that MySpace will generate $180 million in US ad revenue this year, two-thirds of total revenue in the social networking category.

 

“As for succeeding years, News Corp. executives stated in an Aug. 8 quarterly earnings conference call that less than 10% of the $900 million guarantee is earmarked for 2007. That leaves around $810 million to be divvied up over 2008, 2009 and the first two quarters of 2010. And that’s assuming Fox Interactive Media makes its minimum targets – both companies believe the upside will be far greater.

 

“eMarketer estimates that US social network ad spending will rise to nearly $1.9 billion in 2010, from $280 million in 2006. With the Google/MySpace deal, ad revenues at MySpace may top $1 billion as soon as 2010.”

 

But while the social networking opportunity is being monetized, the relationship between two Web 2.0 poster children and the thoughts of an influential business professor suggest companies considering how they can participate must consider “three Cs” if they want to master the opportunity: core competence, Consumer Generated Media and controversy.

 

MySpace has demonstrated that it has discovered a formula for attracting and holding the attention of an extremely distractible, and highly desirable, demographic. But it has not yet developed an e-commerce platform to generate revenue from its audience’s interaction. Enter Google, which is constantly finding new applications for its Web 2.0 competence in managing complex data. Uniting the competencies of the two entities could create a new model for online transactions.

 

Aho Williamson points out that: “New products such as Google Local and Google Checkout are crying out for an audience and MySpace could be a convenient place to give them a big push: Local businesses could offer a seamless way for MySpace users to find their retail storefronts using Google Local, or they could simply handle online transactions with MySpace users by using Google Checkout.”

 

As for Consumer Generated Media (CGM), John Deighton, Harvard Business School Professor and an expert on interactive advertising, provides an interesting perspective. He was interviewed by the Harvard Business School’s Working Knowledge newsletter about the deal, and sees MySpace as “a really exciting marketing frontier.” For one reason, the utilization of CGM means that it can continuously remain linked with the needs and interests of its audience: “MySpace will evolve with its users. It relies on user content, so this is bound to happen. As member tastes grow up, so will their profiles.”

 

With concerns about online predators targeting MySpace users, one can’t mention social networking without noting the controversy it attracts. Deighton suggests that advertisers not be scared off by this concern, and even sees it as part of MySpace’s appeal: “It is popular precisely because it sits between safe-boring and truly frightening. I don’t think News Corp really minds MySpace’s racy image.”

 

There is no doubt that social networking can be monetized. But the companies that do so must have a competence in managing content in Web 2.0—in this case, harnessing collective intelligence and handling a complex database—know how to build a business model around CGM and be willing to handle the controversy that can be involved.

 

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If you spend any time on the Internet, you will have at least a passing interest in blogs. But if you’re responsible for communicating your corporate message and managing your advertising budget, you need to be using this social media actively. Recent statistics demonstrate that blogs are an extremely cost effective way to reach an influential audience at a fraction the cost of traditional media vehicles.

 

The phenomenal growth in the number of blogs has been well documented, and recently released statistics from comScore Media Metrix, demonstrates that this explosion in content has driven a corresponding increase in usage. They report that the traffic to blogs continues to grow, up 56% over the past year to 58.7 million visitors, and that represents 34% of the total Internet audience.

 

 As with many Internet-related trends, a younger demographic plays a key role in driving the numbers. Users between the ages of 12 and 17 are 21% more likely than average to visit blogs.

 

However, certain blog niches (like politics) have a median age of 45 and median income of $85,000, and a high level of C-level executives.

 

Effective blog advertising

The stat about blog niches was provided by Henry Copeland, president of blogads.com, in a discussion with B.L. Ochman on MarketingProfs.com. According to Copeland, the appeal of this new media has driven a 300% growth in blog advertising in the past year. He adds that, if used well, blog advertising can allow companies to establish significant brand awareness for as little as $25,000 to $75,000.

 

The article makes a strong case for the importance of utilizing blogs for corporate marketing, and provides a number of useful examples about how the media can be used to achieve spectacular—and cost effective—results. But it also cautions that advertisers must adopt a blog mindset it they want to succeed with blog advertising.

 

“With click-through rates in traditional online advertising dropping, inexpensive blog click-throughs are as high as 1%,” writes Ochman. “Advertisers are starting to appreciate the influencer constituency on blogs, where the distinct advertising value of these audiences ‘isn't their eyeballs, it’s their mouths,’ Copeland says.

 

“Successful blogs are edgy, have a sense of humor, and are recognized experts in a narrow niche. Blog audiences look at traditional ads, like ‘Click here, get 20% off,’ and say ‘screw this, I've seen it everywhere,’ Copeland says.

 

 

In his discussion, with Ochman, Copeland offers the following guidelines for effective blog ads:

 

                            

Effective corporate blogging

Given the significance of blogs for on-line communications, every company should be incorporating them into their communications mix. Not only is a corporate blog an inexpensive way to deliver information, best practices in corporate blogging have become obvious and are easy to apply:

• Establish your credibility as an expert.
• Know your target audience, connect with them and engage them.
• Use an informal, conversational style.
• Keep your information real and relevant.
• Provide links.
• Respect your competition.

 

Microsoft provided a high profile example of the benefits of corporate blogging with Robert Scoble. His blog attracted millions of readers and his departure captured mainstream media attention. For instance, in its coverage of Scoble’s move to a video blogging start-up, Forbes.com wrote that: “To err is human, to blog, divine? For the last three years, one man has shown how a blog, plain-spoken and irreverent in its tone, could be a tool to significantly help soften the monopolistic bullying image of a corporate giant like Microsoft.”

 

Scoble epitomized the practises mentioned above, winning praise for himself and his company. He was clearly an expert who connected with his tech savvy audience, wasn’t afraid to respect Microsoft’s competition—praising nemesis Google, for example—or to criticize his own company. As a result, writes Forbes, “industry watchers came to appreciate both Scoble's honesty and his inside look into the traditionally insular world of software development.”

 

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Some people really like to gamble, and they always have. According to Open-Site, “anthropologists find solid implications that gambling took place within a large portion of the greatest societies to have ever existed. Dating back to 2300 BC, gambling artifacts have been recovered from some of the oldest civilizations including China, India, Egypt and Rome.”

 

But while gambling has always been popular, it may never have been as popular as it is today. There’s strong evidence to suggest that the Internet is to blame, and calls for online gambling to be eliminated as a result.

 

The latest example of this growing interest in gambling, and the Internet’s role in the activity, is the recently completed World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event, which attracted a record 8,773 entrants, up from the previous best of 5,619 set in 2005. They were competing for US$154 million in prize money, which is an increase from the 2005 sum of $103 million.

 

I don’t like to gamble, due mainly to the fleecing I endured from a gentleman named Dave Scharf when we were teenagers. After losing $15 a few too many times to his vastly superior poker skills, I stormed away from the table and have remained absent ever since.

 

As for Dave, he was just getting started and is now one of the top poker players in Canada and has competed in a number of WSOP Main Events. Ironically, despite killing my desire to gamble, Dave is also responsible for my current interest in the WSOP because I enjoyed reading his blog postings from the event.

 

After recovering from the shock of learning how much money Dave was prepared to lose at the poker tables, one item that caught my attention was his observation regarding the impact the Internet has had on the WSOP: eight of the 10 players at his table had qualified through one of the on-line poker sites.

 

According to a recent piece in Newsfactor Magazine Online, Dave can blame his company on Chris Moneymaker, who “turned his $40 investment in an online game into $2.5 million for winning the 2003 World Series of Poker, [giving] anyone with a modem and a fantasy the idea that he might be the next Virtual Amarillo Slim.” At this year’s WSOP Main Event, for example, it’s estimated that 4,000 of the 8,773 players won their $10,000 stake on an overseas-based Internet poker site.

 

The sites are not based in the U.S. because the Justice Department says that playing poker for money online is illegal, although there are estimates that 15 million U.S. citizens are prepared to break the law by doing just that.

 

Online gambling is a controversial topic, with proponents, like poker professional and author of multiple books on the game Mike Caro, going so far as to say in the Newsfactor article that: “They’re trying to cut off the United States while the whole world is bonding around Internet poker. Here our representatives are criticizing China for trying to cut off access to activities and information on the Internet, and we are trying to do the same thing.

 

“I think this is an issue of freedom. Anybody who loves the Internet ought to be concerned with this.”

 

While Caro’s rallying cry is way over the top, the issue is worth considering for people who are interested in the Internet and its impact on business and government regulations. The Internet makes it easier to do things that people enjoy, and there are always entrepreneurs seeking to profit from that simple fact. In most cases, government stays out of the way and lets the market determine winners and losers.

 

When it comes to gambling, there are people like me, who don’t like the thought of losing thousands of dollars in the hope of winning millions and are happy to use the Web to live vicariously through people like Dave, who has the wherewithal to lose thousands and the ability to win millions. Unfortunately, there are others who, like our ancestors from 2300 BC, are prepared to lose much more than they can afford by gambling. Those losses are prompting the calls for government action, but it should be apparent that banning online poker won’t work: we like gambling and the Internet too much.

There is no event that can match the World Cup for capturing the globe’s attention and stimulating national passions. This year’s tournament is also providing a valuable lesson in how the Internet, when well deployed, plays an essential role in the media mix.

 

Personally, I’m experiencing the tournament’s ability to bring people together from all over the world through the pool in which my old soccer teammates are participating. Many years after our last provincial championship, we’re living across Canada as well as in the U.S., Australia, Spain and  Ireland. E-mail remains one of the key Internet applications, and the organization of our pool—as well as the sharing of video clips of diving Italian strikers and photos of our children—would be impossible without it.

 

The World Cup also energizes the city in which I live, because Toronto has a wonderfully diverse population. Flags adorn vehicles driving through the streets, and entire neighbourhoods shut down after key wins cause impromptu celebrations. Traditional media simply can’t reflect the depth of the passion on the streets, but Consumer Generated Media (CGM) is more than up to the task. One blogger brings a commitment to watch games with national supporters in their favourite hang outs and a digicam to capture the experience of how the tournament is enjoyed in this multi-cultural city.  

                                 

Of course, the tournament would be inconceivable without television. A Global Market Insite (GMI) survey, reported by e-Marketer Daily, showed that over 95% of all global fans will follow the cup on their televisions, with the vast majority (93%) choosing to watch at home. But the Web is becoming an important complement to television.

 

According to figures from comScore, in April there were 5.7 million unique visitors to the official 2006 FIFA World Cup site hosted by Yahoo! and 4.2 million visited in March. Not surprisingly, the bulk of these visitors are in Europe. E-Marketer reports that Europe contributed the greatest proportion of visitors in April with 51%, or almost 3 million people. The next highest region was Asia Pacific, with 17% of the total, nearly 1 million people. Traffic from Latin America represented 12% of the total, and only 10% of the visitors came from North America, highlighting the still limited popularity of soccer in the US.

 

The many North Americans who are not visiting the FIFA World Cup site are not only missing out on the passion and excitement of the tournament, they are not seeing a superb example of how to present information online and engage visitors.

·        The site itself has a remarkable depth of content, including multi-media elements like video highlights. It is also very interactive, with a live match cast that provides comprehensive minute-by-minute up-dates of the games and live fan chat.

·        In addition, if you don’t have access to computer (for example, if your daughter’s gymnastics class coincides with the England-Ecuador match), the site is optimized for viewing on a mobile device. It loads quickly and presents just the information you need to see on a small screen.

 

While following the World Cup offers many Internet-related learning opportunities, I’ve been focused on the lessons provided by the competition and who is involved, such as:

• Don’t let your heart prevail over your head when making crucial decisions, like predicting that Ivory Coast will survive the “group of death” at the expense of Argentina.
• Expect mocking e-mails when bad decisions become known to a global audience, such as predicting that Ivory Coast will survive the “group of death” at the expense of Argentina.
• Don’t drive to Little Italy for pancetta with 15 minutes left to play in an Italian match.

Most business people understand that they can never stop learning and seeking new ideas for their business. And the most successful ones grasp the need to seek those learning opportunities from expected sources—such as conferences and business journals—as well as from unexpected ones, such as other industries. They also know that in today’s economy, the Internet will play a vital role in that learning process.

 

I was reminded of this lesson while preparing my presentation for last weeks’ International Prepress Association’s Technical Conference in Chicago. In a session called “Leveraging Technology to Grow Your Business,” I’d been asked to provide business owners and senior technical managers with ideas on how to do exactly what the title suggested. That could sound like a challenge, if one’s understanding of the growth opportunities for output service providers stops at the headline: “Print is Dead! Long Live the Internet!”

 

To help prepare for the session, I dusted off the March, 2005 copy of Harvard Business Review, which contained an article called “MarketBusting: Strategies for Exceptional Growth.” The article featured a small case study on a printer called Madden Communications. That company had pursued one of the article’s suggested strategies—changing its unit of business from selling a product to selling a product-service mix—and had achieved great success.

 

The magazine described how Madden used a combination of customer insight, strategic planning and operational execution to make the transition and achieve impressive business results: “Madden’s revenues grew from $10 million in 1990 to $133 million in 2004, in an industry thought by many to be hopelessly mature.”

 

The last line, of course, is an elegant way of saying “Print is dead.” But HBR was able to look past that simple statement and see a company that had a lesson to offer for any businessperson willing to learn.

 

And anyone who wants to learn more about Madden can check out their website, which offers a strong example in how to connect a company’s online presence to their business strategy, notably the core competencies page which states: “Madden has transformed what were transactionally siloed steps into an integrated retail solution that we manage better than anybody else. This integrated solution process is our service.”

 

With attendance up 30% from last year, the IPA Conference clearly appealed to a membership that is committed to learning how to manage their technology more effectively. The IPA, in turn, is committed to delivering those learning opportunities and has recognized that its members expect to find that knowledge in an expanding number of ways. At the kick off session, the organization launched its new website, which features an expanded set of online learning tools such as webinars.

(Washington, DC) The inaugural Transformation + Innovation finished here yesterday. The event, organized by Nathaniel Palmer, promised that “participants will learn the most up-to-date strategies, techniques, and technologies for SOA, Leveraging Open Source, Enterprise Architecture Modeling and Modernization as well as Best Practices for BPM and Process Optimization.”

 

Given the event’s strong attendance, that promise resonated with its audience, and more importantly, it was delivered according to the attendees with whom I spoke. They also credited Nathaniel for ensuring that the senior IT staff attending the event had the opportunity to understand the management implications created by collaborative technology like blogs, wikis and RSS.

 

Attendees could learn about these issues in my presentation, “Leveraging Social Software and the Technologies of Web 2.0.” We enjoyed lively interaction in the session, especially around the generation gap relating to the usage of social software.

 

A number of heads nodded when I put up the famous quotation by Max Planck, father of quantum physics: “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.”

 

Planck’s observation is relevant to social software, because as Prescient’s President, Toby Ward, has blogged: CIOs don’t respect social media. Their adoption rate and, more significantly, personal usage of these tools trails that of the MySpace generation, who now spend an average of 1 hour and 22 minutes a day using their computer for social networking. This usage contrasts to the 51% of CIOs for whom social networking has “no interest/not on radar screen,” according to the CIO Magazine study that Toby references.

 

A participant in the session provided an excellent reason for why this generation gap must be taken very seriously by the senior IT people who decide what technology an organization’s employees can use within its environment. Not only was she a senior manager in a large high tech firm, she also lectures at an engineering college. Each year, she hands the graduating students a form they can use to evaluate prospective employers, with a key criteria being the technology they make available for online learning and social networking.

 

Every manager is, or should be, aware that winning the competition for talent is a critical success factor today. It would be a shame for an organization to lose this battle because its CIO is ignoring the world outside her server room.

 

Credit goes to Nathaniel for keeping social networking on the radar screen for attendees at his conference, and to the participants in my session who are deploying the technology to good use in their companies, but always looking for ways to do it better.

The greatest barrier to website success is politics. Technology, budget, skillset are all secondary barriers. The website is a political football.

 

Why is the website so political?

 

Well, most websites don’t grab the attention and focus of senior management. As such, the current state and evolution of the website is left to middle managers mostly in communications, IT and HR who have limited power and decision-making ability, and a limited budget. However, the website represents the entire organization, not just a department, business unit or silo. Therefore, communications, IT, HR and all the other business units and corporate departments are left to cooperate and collaborate on a single channel representing all.

 

This cooperation and collaboration is of course usually in the absence of little or no direction from senior management. So, the kids are left to themselves to play nicely. Uh-oh.

 

 

Of course all know by now that….

 

• Communications sees the world quite differently than IT
• IT views the website far differently than HR
• HR are not technologists and are focused people
• Business units have a laser like focus on their own markets and profit & loss
• Finance cares about the bottom-line which is not a driver of websites (except fore e-commerce sites)
• Etc., etc.

And so the predictable happens: conflict.

 

• Conflict over vision
• Conflict over ownership
• Conflict over application priority
• Conflict over content
• Etc., etc.

With predictable conflict, little consensus and no direction from senior management the website stalls. Often, it stalls for years.

 

An additional problem lies with the traditional growth and evolution of the intranet. Read Why is the intranet so political?

 

© 2006 Toby Ward - Prescient Digital Media

For a consumer preparing to spend a substantial portion of her household income on a family vacation, travel is about finding the right experience for the best value. For the business providing that experience, travel is about standing out in a hyper-competitive, global market while maintaining a sustainable margin. For both parties, travel has also become about mastering the Internet, which these days means immersing themselves in the emerging world of Web 2.0, notably the deep respect for data and the collaborative creation of content.

 

It’s well established that travellers rely on the Internet to make their plans. For example, in its North American Consumer Technology Adoption Study, Forrester discovered that US online leisure Bookers research across an average of 3.2 sites, plus one offline resource, to plan their trips. But in an age in which Intelliseek reports that consumers are 50 percent more likely to be influenced by other customers and individuals than by traditional advertising, travellers are increasingly using the Web to engage in a dialogue with one another about their trips.

 

“User-generated content has exploded over the Internet, and, from blogs to Wikis to MySpace, real-life user commentary is trumping established media and brands,” writes Matt Rand in Forbes.com. “Travelers have taken to the Web and are now providing real-time, illustrated, no-holds-barred travel guides.”

 

The online travel industry, which has reached sales of US$60 billion in revenue, or about one-quarter of the overall US travel market, has recognized the importance of these trends, and as a result provides helpful examples of how to incorporate the technology and mindset of Web 2.0 into their business plans:

 

• A new generation of travel search sites have stolen a page from the Google Web 2.0 playbook, and perform meta-searches to offer comparison-shopping pages that aggregate pricing data from many retail sources. Unlike the travel agent sites like Travelocity, the meta-search sites include every airline and travel-booking agency, including Orbitz and Expedia. Kayak, for example, features the slogan: “search with us, book with them.”  As interesting as the model is, however, Forrester reports that these sites owns less than 5% of all online travel.
• The industry offers an interesting deployment of a wiki to assist with travel planning, World66, a site on which everything is written and edited by random visitors.
• Social networking has become one of the most talked about Web 2.0 phenomenon, and the travel industry has a numerous examples. FlyerTalk, for instance, features thousands of posts from frequent flyers who are helping one another, trading discount certificates and swapping customer experiences. The established travel players are attempting to participate in this Web 2.0 world. Starwood, for example, created a new blog, TheLobby.com, and invited the Starwood Lurker, who had become a celebrity on the FlyerTalk community, to address hotel issues.

 

While these examples provide a good reference for any company contemplating how to incorporate the mindset and technology of Web 2.0 into its strategy, Yahoo! demonstrates how organizations that develop a competence with CGM can enter new markets and pose a significant threat to incumbents.

 

“With features like Yahoo! Shoposphere, an add-on to Yahoo! Shopping that gives users a chance to make lists and guides for others, Yahoo! is tapping into its 400 million users to create content and foster communities that will keep the Web traffic flowing,” notes Rand. “In addition to reviews and photos from Flickr, the service includes a trip planner, where people can create itineraries for trips that other users can then vote for in Yahoo! Travel’s listings if they like the trip plans.”

 

Reiterating the point that Yahoo! sees travel as being a market that requires Web 2.0 technology, it bought travel meta-search site FareChase in 2004 which enables users to check fares while looking at reviews and trip planners.

 

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The NY Times has redesigned their website to make it more like the paper version (credit to Tom Marciniak ).

 

Famed Canadian media guru Marshall McLuhan, called the "Oracle of the Electronic Age", coined the phrase and book title, The Medium is the Massage (not ‘message’ but massage… though it’s assumed that this was a carefully crafted pun). While this quote has largely been bastardized and misinterpreted, McLuhan espoused that the medium or channel that conveyed the message shapes the message (or alters it). In other words, the complete message or meaning of a story on TV could be different than the same story communicated in, for example, a newspaper.

 

 

The NY Times is attempting to make the website look and feel more like the newspaper with a five column layout, less color, etc. However, a website is not a newspaper and shouldn’t be mistaken for a newspaper. People read very differently online than they do when actually holding a physical newspaper. When reading a newspaper you can be sitting in almost any position with no screen glare, no animation, no up-to-the-minute stock quotes, etc.

 

However, I must admit, there are things that I really do like about the new site… and the more I look at it the more I like perhaps better than any other newspaper site.

 

The home page is rather busy with its five columns – I don’t know quite where to start reading. But I like the white space. It looks clean. I very much like the three column layout they use under the Today’s Paper tab which includes an enlargeable JPEG of the actual paper version.

 

When reading an article, the page offers the reader a number of interactive options including E-mail, Print, Reprints, Save This and Single Page (though I’m not sure what this option actually does except strip out one or two ads). Also presented a tabbed box called Most Popular. It lists the top 10 most e-mailed articles, the top 10 most blogged articles, and the top 10 most searched terms (top searches were ‘immigration’ and ‘Colbert’ (as in the very funny current affairs comedian and talk show host).

 

 

 

I like the new site; it works for me. What is agreeable to me though is not necessarily agreeable to the masses. (In fact, I guarantee you the NY Times get a handful of both complaints and kudos.) Users generally like a far more simple layout and less cluttered look. In addition to it hugely effective search engine, there’s a reason why Google is so popular. The Google home page is simple to digest and fast to load. The trend to simplicity is more than just a trend – users demand simplicity.

 

Should you consider a five column layout or try to emulate a hard copy publication? I certainly wouldn’t do it. The medium is the message. However, more important than media theory, is an intimate understanding of the needs and expectations of your users and delivering flawlessly.

U.S. consumers are becoming more and more comfortable shopping online. And they’re spending more – particularly on clothes and luxury items.

 

eMarketer predicts consumers will dramatically increase their spending at online retail shops from $877 per consumer in 2005 to $1,512 per consumer by 2009.

The report shows that, although the average annual growth rate of retail e-commerce sales will slow from the 26% seen between 2001 and 2005, it will remain robust at 18.6% from 2006 to 2009.

"Online shoppers, who have faster online connections and more Internet experience, are venturing beyond the safe purchase categories of books, videos and toys that marked the first e-commerce success stories," wrote eMarketer Jeffrey Grau, senior analyst, in the report.

The retail sector of computer hardware and software is on the cusp of becoming the first category to derive a majority of its sales online, 54.5% by 2010, according to eMarketer calculations. But the categories of jewelry/luxury goods and health and beauty are making the deepest inroads into total sales, with online purchases expected to about double their percent of total category sales by 2010.

Apparel, perhaps more than any other category, demonstrates the maturity of online sales and the comfort level of consumers. Apparel e-commerce as a percent of total retail sales is expected to climb from 5.9% in 2005 to 11.4% by 2010, as specialized niche sites, high-end e-tailers and attention-grabbing technology converge to bring consumers online to buy clothes.

See U.S. Retail E-Commerce

Content should be at the core of your internet strategy. Yes, think about balancing sales channels, connecting the site’s goals to your organizational objectives and getting your look and feel right. But content remains king, so knowing how to effectively deploy and manage it will be critical to your online success.

                                                    

Before presenting at the Gilbane San Francisco conference, I was able to take in a few of the sessions, and two in particular provided excellent insight into the role that content can play in achieving business objectives and the business considerations that must go into being able to manage content.

 

Actionable content

Gilbane Consultant Bill Trippe discussed this useful concept in a presentation to the CM Professionals Spring Conference, which started the day before the Gilbane event.  Bill explained that Forrester originated the phrase “transactional content,” which Mary Laplante and Bill Zoellick from the Gilbane Group have defined as:

Transactional content can be defined as shared information that drives business-to-business processes. It is the content that flows through the commerce chain, initiating and automating processes such as procurement, order management, supply chain planning, and product support. Transactional content is shared in the sense that it is exchanged among partners, suppliers, customers and distributors who each can contribute to it.

Bill and Gilbane colleague David Guenette have taken to calling it “actionable content,” and Bill provided some eye-catching stats explaining why the concept is so important:

 

• Less than 10% of users will contact a supplier whose Website does not provide detailed product and service information (2004 Content Solutions User Needs)
• 91% of industrial buyers rely on the Internet to collect information and 90% of industrial buyers visit the Web and eliminate potential suppliers before they even consider calling (Outsell, Inc, ICR Research, others).

While understanding actionable content is critical, implementing it is complex and difficult. As Bill notes, it requires multiple media, multi-platform integration, and cross-functional teams.

 

In our experience, many companies are beginning to recognize the important contribution content makes to their business goals, even if they are not yet familiar with “actionable content.” And, once they accept the need to tackle an important business challenge, they recognize the importance of developing an effective plan.

 

Managing content

In his outstanding tutorial called “Web Content Management Systems: Architecture & Products,” Tony Byrne of CMS Watch provided a comprehensive overview on the topic. Among the key messages that emerged was that acquiring and implementing a CMS is not a straightforward business decision due to:

 

• Complexity of choice. Tony estimates that there are approximately 2,000 systems available, although about 1,600 are “consulting-ware” that have only been implemented a few times.
• Wide variance in price points. With Enterprise Web CMS solutions starting at $250,000 and Open Source options beginning at $1,000, assigning a budget prior to searching for options may prove virtually impossible.
• Estimating Total Cost of Ownership. TCO can be summed up with a simple question: what does a free dog cost? Open Source provides a great example of why a TCO model is very important for a CMS. As Tony pointed out, these “cheap” solutions often require extensive integration, a cost for which many companies fail to budget. He suggests that for every $1 spent on software, you allocate between $2 and $8 on services.

 

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(San Francisco) There are three certainties in life: death, taxes and, if you manage a website, you will acquire a content management system. Attendees at this week’s Gilbane San Francisco received in-depth information about how best to make this inevitable purchase. They also received an important reminder: content still ends up on paper.

 

For the first time, the session featured a track on automated publishing. The sessions were organized by Gene Gable, with assistance from Thad McIlroy, who are well known in publishing circles for their work in documenting the digitization of the production value chain.

 

The track provided the opportunity for participants to learn how the printed page can best be managed in a broader content management plan. It also enabled them to understand how new publishing technology can benefit all players involved in creating and distributing content.

 

For example, I presented in a session called “Accommodating creative needs in content management.” The key message was that when planning to implement a solution that will have a profound effect on the way an organization communicates—whether it’s a CMS or automated publishing system—success depends on understanding two phrases:  who is “in the tent” and who has put “skin the game.”

 

In the tent

Prior to beginning to evaluate new technology, the project manager needs to determine who to put on the project team. In other words, who should be in the tent? It sounds like common sense, but we still see too many examples in which one department acquires a system and then starts approaching other groups to gain their support. The required buy-in is often secured, but at the expense of precious time and energy that delays the implementation of the system. Or worse, the company discovers the system is missing critical functionality.

 

 

Putting skin in the game

Aside from not putting the right people in the tent before initiating the search for a new solution, another common problem is allowing an individual or a department to develop and implement the acquisition plan on their own. Not only does this approach mean that there’s no load balancing of the work, it also creates the impression that it’s “their plan” not “our plan.”

 

There are many reasons why people don’t get behind other people’s plan. Some are negative, like if the plan fails you can preserve the ability to say it’s not my fault. Some are benign, like you don’t understand it and can’t see why it should be a priority. Once it becomes “our plan,” however, we take partial ownership for its success. In other words, we’ve put skin in the game.

 

The approach is important when evaluating any major content management system, but so is remembering that content still ends up on paper. Frank Gilbane deserves a lot of credit for bringing Gene and Thad into the conference and making sure that paper stays in content’s tent.

 

 

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With some rare exceptions, the answer is likely “very few”. According to a new Forrester research study podcasting is more hype than reality. The report Podcasting Hits the Charts reveals that only 1% of U.S. households regularly listen to podcsts.

 

Anecdotally, I have to tell you, I don’t know a single person that listens to podcasts except for one or two people – and they’re hard core tech nerds that have their own podcasts. And I know and meet a lot of like-minded people who are hardly luddites. They’re technology savvy and have iPods. But they have no interest in listening to an amateur broadcaster talk about their favorite (fill-in-the-blank).

 

Does that mean that all podcasters are amateurs and geeks? No certainly not. All listeners are nerds? Absolutely not. However, the medium is primarily dominated by tech enthusiasts with very, very few average everyday workers or families partaking.

 

While some of you iPod fans reading this will be shocked and angered by these low numbers (as some podcasters such as PodTech.net founder John Furrierh who has already expressed his outrage over this study) there is a difference between hope and reality. The hope – and certainly all expectations – is that podcasting will explode with millions of users by the end of the decade. The reality is that this media is limited in use and practice to just a few techno geeks.

 

Does that mean you shouldn’t launch your own podcast? No. If you have a desire to do so then go for it. It’s practically free (if you have a computer and microphone). But temper your expectations regarding potential listenership. Unless you only plan this as a side hobby there are far better media for reaching your target audience – unless that target audience is hardcore tech fans. If you plan to start a business podcast for employees or customers you better know what you’re doing and a well-defined plan is a must. If you want to build an attentive listener base you’d better understand your target audience and market to them accordingly.

 

A good podcast is more than an investment of 15 or 20 minutes a week. Understand that the return on your time in these early months and years of podcasting likely won’t amount to much despite all the hype indicating otherwise. But the future looks bright…

 

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A new report form the Annals of Family Medicine finds that the computer, if used well by a skilled physician, can enhance the patient-doctor relationship.

 

Physicians, Patients, and the Electronic Health Record: An Ethnographic Analysis finds that when used,  the electronic health record (EHR -  the medical record, patient education materials, and Internet search capabilities) can add a valued dynamic to the patient relationship and enhance therapeutic relationships.

 

However, the computer can weaken the patient-doctor relationship if the physician uses it as a substitute for dialogue with the client. Therefore, it depends on ‘how’ the doctor uses the computer.

 

Whether the computer enhances or weakens the relationship depends both on how easy it is to use and how skilled physicians are in making use of it.

 

These conclusions were derived from a study of participant observation (80 hours) in 4 primary care offices and individual interviews with 23 physicians, 52 patient and other support works. This was accompanied by 5 focus-groups of participants.

 

"Physicians were often conflicted between recording data in the EHR and giving patients one-on-one attention," wrote the study's authors, led by William Ventres of Multnomah County Health Department in Portland, Ore.

 

Ventres (et all) found four key factors in influencing this relationship:

 

• Spatial Factors - for example, how the physical location of the computer monitor influenced dialogue between the patient and doctor (“Large, fixed monitors located in the corner of the examination room caused consternation among both physicians and patients, whereas flat-screen monitors on mobile arms were universally praised.)

• Relational Factors - how doctors and patients used and perceived the computer. "There are times where it’s obvious you’re going through a structured way of dealing with a presenting problem. It’s click, click, point, and your note is done. Then there are these much more complex, human interactions. It just isn’t appropriate to be sitting there typing at the time,” was a quote offered by one of the study’s participant doctors.

• Educational Factors – how skilled and experienced the doctor in using the computer and EHR.

• Structural Factors - factors such as the cost and funding for EHR, and how the host organization (e.g. clinic or hospital) perceived and influenced (culture) the use of EHR.

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